Chelsea vs Luton should be the biggest mismatch in Premier League history

25 August 2023 , 06:30

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Chelsea vs Luton should be the biggest mismatch in Premier League history

Never before will the gaps between haves and have nots in the Premier League be more pronounced than when Luton Town visit Chelsea on Friday night.

If football really is now decided by financial strength, then the Hatters should have no chance of winning at Stamford Bridge in a game that feels more FA Cup third round than a top-flight fixture.

That is not meant to be condescending towards the newly-promoted Hatters. It is just one more reflection on how skewed the imbalance has become in a sport where the select few continue to pull away.

Luton have spent £32m on 91 players in their entire history, which is less than 3.5 per cent of the £961m committed by Chelsea on fees in the past 14 months or 28 per cent of Moises Caicedo.

Studies have been long carried out which suggests that a team’s finishing place in the league table is often determined by wage spend - and the correlation is much clearer than transfer fees.

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But on every financial level these clubs are worlds apart. It is futile to read too much into Luton’s turnover of £17m from their latest accounts because it does not include the Premier League’s broadcast riches that they are now entitled to.

Yet elements such as matchday income - £4.9m according to the most recent figures - are not going to change hugely and their commercial revenue for 2021/22, when they finished sixth in the Championship, was only £2.3m. Ignoring the fact Chelsea’s owners are happy to spend unprecedented sums on the transfer market, the club made £177.1m from commercial revenue and £80m in matchday takings with total turnover of £481.3m.

Luton boss Rob Edwards is working on a budget that is just a fraction of Chelsea's. (Getty Images)

Of course Rob Edwards and his team, who lost their opening fixture 4-1 away to Brighton but had last weekend’s game against Burnley postponed while construction work continues at Kenilworth Road, will embrace the underdog tag and play on Chelsea's own insecurities.

The fact Mauricio Pochettino's billionaire boys team, with one point from their opening two fixtures, will be pilloried for anything other than a comfortable win is an advantage.

Luton's modus operandi for a season in which no one is really giving them a chance of staying up is to disrupt and upset. They will make life difficult for most teams and may even scrape a couple of shock results against the bigger clubs - but shock cannot be underlined enough because it is already one of the great achievements of modern football that a club operating on such a shoestring has made it to this stage.

Alan Smith